Leave Bond Street tube station by the Oxford Street north exit and you find yourself walking up some steps in to what is a cul-de-sac off Oxford Street. As you reach the top look ahead and you are looking at Stratford House. Notice the elephant flag? This has been home to the Oriental Club since 1959. Step through those doors and you are stepping back in time to the days of the East India Comapny. In his book Winter in London, published in 1950, Ivor Brown devotes a chapter to the time when Stratford House was an art gallery for sports-themed pictures. It is a grand house, so what’s the story?
First clue; look to your left and notice a brick structure, like a sentry box with a stone lion on top. Now imagine one the other side and a gate across. Suddenly Stratford Place is not quite so open.
In the 1770′s Edward Stratford bought this strip of land from the Corporation of London and built his grand house across the end and smaller houses either side. He needed the gate and sentry boxes because at this time what is now Oxford Street was still a dangerous place. Walk towards the big house and notice how soon it becomes tranquil. This part of Oxford Street is always busy and yet it now all seems far away. As you reach the big house notice the turning circle, your carriage would stop so you could dis-embark then head off again.
Look carefully and you will spot a small City of London crest, yet this is not the City of London, that’s way over there. Back in the 1230′s the City of London was fast runnning out of clean water, the search was on for a fresh supply. So it was that in 1237 the Lord of the Manor of Tyburn granted the City of London a strip of land on the banks of the Tyburn River. Conduits were installed and the water was piped to the City.
This was such an important event that each year the Lord Mayor of London would ride out to inspect the conduits. Remember this was all still countryside. The Lord Mayor and his party would then go hunting in the surrounding fields for hare with a hunting cry of so-ho. A banqueting house was constructed so that they could have a big meal before riding back to the City. There is a print of the banqueting house in the archives and it looks like a big cottage.
With construction of the New River, the City no longer needed this supply and eventually the banqueting house was demolished in 1757. The Tyburn River was piped and still runs underground from it’s source in Hampstead. Standing in Stratford Place you would never know the river came through here, so we need to venture out into Oxford Street for some clues.
Turn left along Oxford Street and you very quickly reach Marlyelbone Lane. This still winds it’s way north and was originally the path by the Tyburn River. Notice that here where it joins Oxford Street it forks and currently there is a big hotel in the space created.
Where you are standing is where the settlement of Tyburn developed and in 1200 a church was built in the triangle of land. In time a watch house was built on the site, this was where the constable would lock up wrong-doers overnight. The watch house evolved into a court house and then a town hall. Along the way the settlement of Tyburn was abandoned for a more secure location further north than became modern day Marylebone, or as Peyps called it Marrowbone.
One last clue; walk along Marylebone Lane and look carefully and you will discover a small stone plaque that refers to the conduits. History in unlikely places.
